Editing Francis Poulenc (section)

===1920s: increasing fame===
From the early 1920s Poulenc was well received abroad, particularly in Britain, both as a performer and a composer. In 1921 [[Ernest Newman]] wrote in ''[[The Manchester Guardian]]'', "I keep my eye on Francis Poulenc, a young man who has only just arrived at his twenties. He ought to develop into a [[farce]]ur of the first order." Newman said that he had rarely heard anything so deliciously absurd as parts of Poulenc's song cycle ''Cocardes'', with its accompaniment played by the unorthodox combination of [[cornet]], trombone, violin and percussion.<ref>Newman, Ernest. "The week in music", ''The Manchester Guardian'', 28 April 1921, p. 5</ref> In 1922 Poulenc and Milhaud travelled to Vienna to meet [[Alban Berg]], [[Anton Webern]] and [[Arnold Schoenberg]]. Neither of the French composers was influenced by their Austrian colleagues' revolutionary [[twelve-tone]] system, but they admired the three as its leading proponents.<ref>Hell, p. 23</ref> The following year Poulenc received a commission from [[Sergei Diaghilev]] for a full-length ballet score. He decided that the theme would be a modern version of the classical French ''[[fête galante]]''. This work, ''[[Les biches]]'', was an immediate success, first in Monte Carlo in January 1924 and then in Paris in May, under the direction of [[André Messager]]; it has remained one of Poulenc's best-known scores.<ref>Hell, pp. 24–28</ref> Poulenc's new celebrity after the success of the ballet was the unexpected cause of his estrangement from Satie: among the new friends Poulenc made was [[Louis Laloy]], a writer whom Satie regarded with implacable enmity.<ref name=s136>Schmidt (2001), p. 136</ref> Auric, who had just enjoyed a similar triumph with a Diaghilev ballet, ''Les Fâcheux'', was also repudiated by Satie for becoming a friend of Laloy.<ref name=s136/>

[[File:Wanda Landowska (1879-1959) portrait.jpg|thumb|alt=Head and shoulders portrait of smiling middle-aged woman|upright|[[Wanda Landowska]], friend and colleague from 1923]]
As the decade progressed, Poulenc produced a range of compositions, from songs to chamber music and another ballet, ''[[Aubade (Poulenc)|Aubade]]''. Hell suggests that Koechlin's influence occasionally inhibited Poulenc's natural simple style, and that Auric offered useful guidance to help him appear in his true colours. At a concert of music by the two friends in 1926, Poulenc's songs were sung for the first time by the [[Baritone#Baryton-Martin|baritone]] [[Pierre Bernac]], from whom, in Hell's phrase, "the name of Poulenc was soon to be inseparable."<ref>Hell, pp. 31–32</ref> Another performer with whom the composer came to be closely associated was the [[harpsichord]]ist [[Wanda Landowska]]. He heard her as the soloist in [[Manuel de Falla|Falla]]'s ''[[El retablo de maese Pedro]]'' (1923), an early example of the use of a harpsichord in a modern work, and was immediately taken with the sound. At Landowska's request he wrote a concerto, the ''[[Concert champêtre]]'', which she premiered in 1929 with the [[Orchestre Symphonique de Paris]] conducted by [[Pierre Monteux]].<ref>Canarina, p. 341</ref>

The biographer Richard D. E. Burton comments that, in the late 1920s, Poulenc might have seemed to be in an enviable position: professionally successful and independently well-off, having inherited a substantial fortune from his father.<ref name=b37>Burton, p. 37</ref> He bought a large country house, {{ill|Le Grand Coteau|fr}}, at [[Noizay]], Indre-et-Loire, {{convert|140|mi|km}} south-west of Paris, where he retreated to compose in peaceful surroundings.<ref name=b37/>

He began his first serious affair, with the painter [[Richard Chanlaire]] to whom he sent a copy of the ''Concert champêtre'' score inscribed:
{{blockindent|You have changed my life, you are the sunshine of my thirty years, a reason for living and working.<ref>Ivry, p. 68</ref>|}}
While this affair was in progress Poulenc proposed marriage to his friend Raymonde Linossier. As she was not only well aware of his homosexuality but was also romantically attached elsewhere, she refused him, and their relationship became strained.<ref name=i74/><ref>Schmidt (2001), p. 154</ref> He suffered the first of many periods of depression, which affected his ability to compose, and he was devastated in January 1930 when Linossier died suddenly at the age of 32. On her death he wrote, "All my youth departs with her, all that part of my life that belonged only to her. I sob&nbsp;... I am now twenty years older".<ref name=i74>Ivry, p. 74</ref> His affair with Chanlaire petered out in 1931, though they remained lifelong friends.<ref>Ivry, p. 86; and Schmidt (2001), p. 461</ref>